The Democrats

Emerging Democratic majority

After 40 years of decline, the party discovers demographic trends swing voters its way

By John Aloysius FarrellSpecial to the Denver Post

Posted:
08/23/2008 02:55:08 PM MDT

Updated:
08/23/2008 07:11:01 PM MDT

SINGLE WOMEN: Mo Wise, 19, teaches surfing when she s not taking classes at a nearby college where she lives
in Dana Point, Calif. As a young, single woman, she is excited about the new energy the Barack Obama campaign has brought to politics. (Post | RJ Sangosti)

Asian-Americans

Much of what is said about Latinos is true about Asian-Americans, a smaller but similarly fast-growing ethnic minority.

Like Latinos, most Asian-Americans are hard-working, family-oriented and culturally conservative — and open to Republican appeals. And like Latinos, Asian-Americans come from many nations and must be carefully characterized. The GOP carried the Asian-American vote in 1992 and 1996.

Asian-American interests don't always line up with those of other minorities. A study this year by researchers at UCLA discovered that, with the dismantling of state affirmative-action programs, Asian-American enrollment rose at elite state universities in California, Texas and Florida at the expense of other ethnic and racial groups.

Yet, as with Latinos, outbreaks of Republican nativism can have an alienating affect on Asian-Americans. Since 1996, Asian-American votes have flowed toward the Democrats, with Gore and Kerry winning comfortable majorities.

Turnout is a problem. In the 2004 presidential election, less than half of all Asian citizens voted, compared to two-thirds of whites and 60 percent of African-Americans, Frey says.

ProfessionalsIn the glory years after World War II, the distinction was clear: blue-collar workers were Democrats and white-collar workers were Republicans.

All that has changed.

As the white working class exited the Democratic Party in the past 40 years, they had to squeeze by the nation's professional class, which was entering through the door.

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And as America continues the transition from the industrial age to a postindustrial, information-based society, the professional class has grown bigger and more diverse.

During the 1950s, fewer than one in 10 Americans were members of the professional workforce — scientists, physicians, lawyers, architects, teachers, engineers. That number has more than doubled today.

Given that voting turnout generally matches educational achievement, the professional community in some states can make up as much as 25 percent of the electorate, say Judis and Teixeira.

CATHOLICS: Steve Aponte, 27, visits with his grandmother Veronica Regan-Corealis, 81, as she does the lunch dishes at their home in Jersey City, N.J.
She is a lifelong Democrat, and Aponte said he votes mostly Democratic, but he likes to call himself an independent. I had a lot more faith in Hillary, Aponte said. But Obama is a fresh, new force, and I hope he can bring prosperity back. (Post | RJ Sangosti)

Professionals have varying interests. Doctors and trial lawyers, for example, are on opposing sides when it comes to malpractice and tort reform. And many health care professionals view the Democratic Party's promise to provide universal health care while cutting costs with considerable wariness.

But overall, professionals voted by a 61 to 38 margin for Nixon in 1960, but by 63 to 37 for Kerry in 2004, Teixeira says.

More diversity means more Democrats

Many of these categories overlap. Michelle Obama, for example, is a college-educated, professional, working African-American woman.

And even in Chicago, she can vote only once.

The cumulative impact of the trends Judis and Teixeira have studied, then, is difficult to discern. But the blues and reds of the political map offer clues to what may be in store.

Middle-age political junkies recall the time, in the late 1980s and early 1990s, when the experts spoke of the Republican "lock" on the Electoral College.

As the American population shifted to the South and West, it was said the GOP's advantage in California, Arizona, Texas, Florida, the old Confederacy and the Rocky Mountain states would only grow.

Then California flipped for Clinton in 1992 after voting for a Republican presidential candidate in nine of the previous 10 elections. In 1996, Clinton again carried the state. So did Gore and Kerry. Now California is the West Coast anchor of the Democratic Party: Democrats have carried the state by more than a million votes in each of the past four presidential elections.

Part of the reason for the flip was the absence of native sons Nixon and Reagan from the presidential ballot. But while America wasn't watching, California — always a trend-setter — had also blossomed with high-tech workers, Asian-Americans and Latinos, and college-educated natives and migrants.

The new, diverse California electorate had secular, pro-environment and libertarian values that did not mesh with the changing philosophy of the Republican Party, especially as it was seen to be dominated by Southern politicians, social conservatives and evangelical voters.

States such as Colorado, Oregon, Washington, Virginia and North Carolina offer additional examples.

URBAN PROFESSIONALS: Dr. Mark Kowal, 28, left, after a long shift at the hospital, enjoys a cold beer at home in Seattle with his wife, Kendra,
a 31-year-old teacher for kids with emotional and behavioral disorders. The couple is among many urban professionals who are changing the face of the new Democratic Party.
Mark hopes the Democrats can do something to help the American health care system, while Kendra hopes for reform in education.
(Post | RJ Sangosti)

All have been affected by increased immigration, a leap in the number of highly educated and professional workers, and the emergence of blooming high-tech centers that Judis and Teixeira call "ideopolises."

The National Committee for an Effective Congress, a liberal research group, contends that the GOP has now been "reduced to a regional party" with almost half its seats in Congress coming from the South or states bordering the South.

Redistricting after the 2010 census is expected to shift more seats in Congress to the Southwest and South, but the GOP can no longer presume that these will be filled by Republicans.

"In the rapidly growing Western region, Republicans hold only 41.8 percent of House districts, an astounding reversal from 1994, when they held 57 percent of Western House districts," the research group notes.

States like Colorado, "in terms of how its demographics have shifted in the last 10 to 15 years," says Democratic National Committee executive director Tom McMahon, represent "the future of the Democratic Party."